


Petal Confetti and Paper Bouquets

by LadyKnightOfHollyrose



Category: Free!
Genre: Flowers, Fluff, Friendship, Language of Flowers, M/M, MakoRin Week, Origami, Romance, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 13:59:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2775611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKnightOfHollyrose/pseuds/LadyKnightOfHollyrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin reaches into his pocket again, and sure enough, his fingers only find two of the three cherry blossoms that had been in there to begin with.</p><p>The boy on the bench turns the paper flower in his fingers, smoothing out the petals. His green eyes are soft, his hair looks softer and the tiny smile on his face makes Rin feel warm. </p><p>Absently, Rin wonders about what would make the boy smile even wider.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Petal Confetti and Paper Bouquets

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt 'Flowers' for MakoRin week on tumblr

Sometimes, Rin wishes that Makoto wasn’t so _nice_.

It would make him feel a _lot_ less guilty for not writing back to his friend when he does it so regularly; it would mean that he _wouldn’t_ feel like shit when it’s one of the things that keep him going.

Most of the time, they’re full of anecdotes. Stories about how Ren and Ran are doing, about local cat and kitten sightings, about school and the beach and Haru. But sometimes he receives a page of Makoto’s rambling thoughts, of his speculations and introspections. Sometimes, it’s a short letter full of nostalgia and well wishes (and as much as Rin pretends otherwise, he can read between the lines well enough to pick up the ‘we miss you’).

He keeps them in a shoebox in his room, hidden away for the days that are particularly hard and home feels too far away.

But he still never writes back.

He’s justified it to himself in so many ways (each excuse weaker than the last) but the thing that always makes him feel the worst is that _despite this_ Makoto doesn’t stop writing.

The first winter that Rin comes back to Iwatobi, he prays that he doesn’t run into Makoto.

Because although Rin can stay his hand from putting his words to paper, he doesn’t trust himself not to spill his carefully guarded feelings if confronted by Makoto’s open and accepting face.

Still, after unpacking his bag and lolling on his bed for a bit, Rin settles at his desk, rearranges the layout (because really, his mother should have just left it all as it was) until he finds a half used pack of construction paper, mostly left over from helping Gou with a school project the year before.

He remembers the tiny smile he’d caught on the boy he’d barely known a year before, and a passing thought that had struck him at the time.

Then he gets to work.

-

It turns into something of a tradition.

When he comes back to Iwatobi for the New Year, he’ll sit at his desk and think about everything he’s wanted to say for the past year as he makes bluebells from paper, each made with care and precision.

They are then slipped into an envelope to be delivered to the Tachibana residence (sometimes by post, and sometimes they’re hastily shoved into the letterbox) marked for Makoto’s attention.

Because even after his disastrous encounter with Haru, and despite his own stubborn silence, he still gets letters from Makoto that can make him smile when things feel so bleak.

And well, the least Rin can do is return the favour once a year.

_Bluebells ~ Constancy_

-

The first is an accident; or perhaps a happy coincidence.

Rin is waiting on a bench outside the changing rooms for Sousuke to come out so that they can head out to the car park where they’ll meet their teammates.

Although the swim meet was _supposed_ to be casual, the two of them couldn’t help but spur each other on, to see who could be the fastest, who was better. Rin had touched the wall about a second before Sousuke in the last race they’d been together and Rin had teased his friend for tiring himself out.

He still doesn’t think it warrants taking _this_ long though.

Rin laces his fingers together and stretches his arms up over his head for a moment, lip quirking up in satisfaction as he feels his muscles loosen slightly in response. The movement causes something to tumble from the pocket of his jacket, though, and a faint rustle of paper catches his attention in time for him to save it from getting crushed by his bag.

Three origami cherry blossoms in various shades of pink (which are slightly rumpled around the edges) sit in his hand; he wonders briefly when Gou had the chance to slip them into his pocket.

They had spent half of the previous evening after having dinner carefully folding pink construction paper into blossoms of various sizes. Technically Gou should have been the only one making flowers – her class was putting together decorations for a play, and part of the back drop was a cherry blossom tree. Each member of the class needed to bring in five cherry blossoms that they had made, and well, Gou had needed a lot of practice before she had made five that she was satisfied with.

Rin, being the great brother that he is, had kept her company.

Gou must have slipped him the leftovers from the final contenders to be taken into school.

Sousuke lopes out of the changing rooms and Rin drops them back into his pocket as he shoulders his bag. There might be a way to stick them to the fridge; he’ll have to ask his mother later.

Outside they find their teacher waiting; arms crossed and foot tapping, with only three of their team. They volunteer to go back and find the others. The throw down that they have on the way has Rin grinning as he makes his way to the vending machines, Sousuke grumbling as he strides back into the changing rooms.

Rin buys their drinks and walks back towards the bench he’d been waiting on earlier to find someone else perched there already, carefully turning something over in their hands.

Rin reaches into his pocket again, and sure enough, his fingers only find two of the three cherry blossoms that had been in there to begin with.

The boy on the bench turns the paper flower in his fingers, smoothing out the petals. His green eyes are soft, his hair looks softer and the tiny smile on his face makes Rin feel warm. He’s the boy who had been competing in breast stroke events all day, who had looked so timid outside of the pool but had thrown himself completely into his swimming as soon as he was in the water.

Absently, Rin wonders about what would make the boy smile even wider.

Then Sousuke’s back, the rest of their group trailing after him, and Rin doesn’t think of the boy again until their next meet when he finally introduces himself to the boy and his dark haired friend.

_Cherry Blossoms ~ Beauty_

-

After almost a full school year of intentional chill and several years before that of silence, Rin had thought that reintegration to his old group of friends would be a little more… stilted? Difficult?

Of course with Makoto and Nagisa around he should really know better. While he and Haru fall into their old habits easily (wherein Rin baits Haru into a competition, Haru pretends not to react as he internally bristles, they race, etc. etc.) Rin also surprises himself in finding such a good friend in Rei. Not that it _should_ surprising considering how similar they seem to be in certain respects.

But things are still different, and he feels it most keenly with Makoto.

Makoto, who had once been so small and meek, now stands tall as captain of his team. But it’s not even the physical difference that throws him (though he has to admit to having been utterly transfixed when he’d first seen his friend swim backstroke the first time after he’d returned).

If anything, part of it is how easily they seem to fall back into the rhythm of their friendship again.

Rin doesn’t have to bite his tongue anymore, and in drips and drabs he tells Makoto the things he’d been tucking away for so long (in slips of blue paper), but more importantly he talks about his _own_ dream now that he’s found it.

Not that all of their conversation is so heavy; it shouldn’t surprise him, all things considered, but Makoto is an avid texter and he soon finds his inbox full of pictures of cats, and messages that soon spiral into conversations that go on late into the night.

He doesn’t actually realise just how screwed he is until a gaming night that the five of them have at Makoto’s house.

The boys descend upon Makoto’s room in true teenaged fashion, sprawling all over the place and bickering over pillows. Makoto hooks up the console as the others settle, and Rin’s about to prod Haru into a match in whatever the first game they play is when something catches his eye.

A lopsided, handmade pottery vase with a splotchy multi-coloured pattern sits at the corner of Makoto’s bedside table. Carefully arranged inside are five sets of paper bluebells and in the middle, one crudely made cherry blossom which has been affixed to a green straw.

Rin’s breath catches in his throat, and never has he been more grateful for the chaotic presence that is Nagisa as he creates enough of a distraction that Rin’s lapse in attention goes unnoticed.

(He is not so lucky later when Haru catches him staring at Makoto. He tries to wave it off as surprise that Makoto’s wearing glasses, which is actually partially true. When Haru tells him to stop drooling though, he knows the other doesn’t buy it.

When he stops by his house to say hi to his mother the next day, he absently folds a lavender napkin into a rose as he waits for his laundry to wash, his mind on the way Makoto had filled out his shirt the night before and the mischievous grin he’d had just before beating them all on the rainbow road…

Yeah. He is _so_ screwed.)

_Rose (lavender) ~ Enchanted_

-

“You,” Sousuke tells him from Rin’s bunk, having the nerve to look _amused_ instead of sympathetic like a _good_ best friend would, “are an idiot.”

Rin growls at him from the desk.

Sousuke, unfortunately, does not let up. ”You’ve known this was coming for months. Even if he _wasn’t_ moving to Tokyo I think you’re forgetting that you decided that you’re moving to _Australia_ first.”

Which is not constructive or useful at all. So Rin throws the closest thing he can reach (an issue of Monthly Muscle Magazine) over his shoulder at the annoyance.

“You are the _worst_.”

Sousuke snorts, and Rin can hear the smirk in his voice as he responds nonchalantly. “Hey, I’m still listening to you aren’t I? Plus it’s my job to tell you when you’re acting like an idiot.” Sousuke rolls onto his side and Rin can feel his friend’s eyes boring into his back. “So what are you going to do about it? Aren’t you going over for a last minute English cram session?”

Rin looks down at his hands, and the crumpled remains of a blank club admission form that he’d been fiddling with before Sousuke had started calling him names.

A thought strikes him, and Rin can’t hold back a groan.

“What?” Sousuke asks, raising a brow.

“I’ve had the _worst_ idea, and you’re not even going to stop me. Fat lot of good you are.”

Sousuke just grins lazily at him and Rin has to suppress the urge to throw something else at him. He has work to do after all.

-

Makoto stretches, stiff from curling over the kotatsu to work through the notes that Rin had put together for him, and glances around the room.

He spots one of the bags Rin had brought with him still resting against the side of the couch, and Makoto’s brow furrows as he reaches for his phone; it might be something important after all.

He only means to peek into the bag so he can text Rin to let him know what exactly has been left behind, but when he catches sight of the bag’s content he feels like his breath has left his lungs.

Inside is a painstakingly beautiful bouquet of handmade origami tulips, the yellow edged construction paper tipped with golden glitter that catches the pale February light that streams through the window.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Makoto slides the bouquet from the bag and finds a tag with his name where the bunch is tied together. He notices one of the flowers looks a little odd, so he slides it from the bundle and inspects the darker petals before realising that it must have something written _inside_ it.

He pulls the petals apart gingerly, afraid of ripping the paper entirely, then smooths out the remaining square so that he can properly read the message.

Then he sprints up the stairs to the twins’ room to get his _own_ sheet of construction paper.

_Yellow Tulip ~ Declaration of Love_

-

Rin  doesn’t go straight back to the dorm; instead, he takes a detour, jogging by the renovated swim club and by the cherry blossom tree that they’d buried their time capsule next to. He takes the long way around to the train station and loops back to a park before finally making his way back to Samezuka.

He checks the clock as he walks through the corridors to his room, and figures that Sousuke will probably have left for his own house by now.

He doesn’t really want to face the well intentioned interrogation that he will likely get the next time he sees his best friend right at this moment.

Rin unlocks his door and is surprised to see that the light is switched on.

He’s even _more_ surprised to see Makoto slumped over his desk, eyes shut as his back rise and falls with each breath he takes in his sleep. He looks so peaceful that Rin has to take a moment to just observe, before he notices something small and pink near Makoto’s loosely held fingers that most certainly hadn’t been there before.

It’s crude, and there are creases along the petals that mean it had been folded and refolded until the pattern had looked right, but Rin can tell that it’s supposed to be a cherry blossom.

He feels almost sorry for having to undo Makoto’s hard work, but if the indentation on the petals is anything to go by, Makoto has an answer for the message Rin had left for him before he could think better of it and back out.

Rin pries loose the petals, holding his breath. Then his heart  _swells_.

 

> Even unspoken, I think the words from each petal reached me anyway.
> 
> But I guess my feelings haven’t reached you yet;
> 
> I like you too, silly.

(Maybe Sousuke can have the title of greatest best friend after all.)

_Cherry Blossom ~ New Beginnings_

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, the ending ended up being kind of rushed but it’s 4am and I have work in 3 and a bit hours! So this is also un-edited and will be tidied up later ^^’
> 
> This was actually an idea I originally had for the MakoRin Valentines Fiesta earlier in the year but didn’t get past planning because of all sorts of RL crap that messed me up at the time - I’m glad I got to finish it now though!


End file.
